The Great Hosta Photo Contest

Well, The Great Hosta Photo Contest is finally over, and what a great contest it
was! An amazing 811 new hostas now have their portraits in the HostaLibrary
as a result. Carol Brashear, one of the people who helped Bob get the Library
started and has contributed much over the years, is the winner with a truly
awesome 270 entries. Karen Butner gave it a heck of a shot, but in the end
couldn't catch Carol. If there's another contest next year, watch out for Karen.
These two really worked for it, with a combined total of 473, they had more than
half of the entries in the contest, and both had more than twice what their
nearest competitor had. Carol wins the $200 top prize and gets first pick of the
plants. Karen wins the $125 second prize and second pick of the plants. Another
newcomer Nathan Wood, and Ken Marek, finish third and win $60 and the third pick
for their efforts and Ray Wiegand finishes fourth, winning $35 and the fourth
pick. The other contestants in the order in which they finished
are:

1. Carol in
CT ..................270

2. Karen
.........................203

3. Nathan Wood
...............97

4. Ray Wiegand
...............60

5. Erwin Van Delzen
.........49

6. Bev Stegeman
..............29

7. Kent Terpening
.............26

8.
Alttara Scheer ..............19

9. Mike Ewald
..................14

10. Josh Spece
...................9

11. Pat Mora .......................7

12. Aleesa Drennen .............6

13. Cheryl Belobraydic .........5

14. TIE -- Rachel Vincun
.....4

Kathy Miller .........4

15. Bevie Schmidt ...............3

16. TIE -- Randy Goodwin .....1

Les Pickett ...........1

Charlotte Miles .......1

Michael Laico .........1

Julie Kelty...............1

Sue........................1

If
you are one of the winners, please stay tuned for further instructions on how to
choose your plants from the list of prizes. This may take a while because not
all contestants may be available to choose today. There are 13 prizes now in the
Plants and Other Prizes section, so if you stand below #13 in the standings,
there may be a chance if one of the higher-placing contestants declines a prize.
If this happens, we'll have a tiebreaker for the #14 spot. Will all contestants
please send their E-mail addresses to Bob at bobaxe@sbtek.net If there are any
challenges to the results of this contest, please send them to me at njhosta@comcast.net and we will check all
the records carefully and get back to you promptly with a response to your
questions. As previously stated entries that were already submitted by other
contestants were disallowed, as were plants that did not match their names,
plants that did not yet have their own names, and plants that were already in
the Library under other names even if those names were no longer correct or
misspelled.

The
organizers of the Great Hosta Photo Contest would like to thank everyone
who entered photos to help buiild the HostaLibrary. It stands alone among
plant websites in size and quality. Daylily and other groups can only envy what
we hosta enthusiasts have. Thanks too go to the donors of all our prizes.
They have surely spurred the contestants to greater efforts, and will
doubtless be a much appreciated reward for all the time spent wandering
around gardens with notebook and camera, and more time yet at home organizing
and preparing to enter their pictures. Thanks to those who worked in the
background checking and rechecking to be sure the credit went to the right
person and that the hostas submitted weren't already there. And last of all
thanks to Bob, for creating the Library for all of us to use, and for creating
this contest to enrich it.